Ted’s useful new
intervention on the issue of the eco-village movement, following the earlier
exhaustive examination of the paradigmatic and strategic differences between
his ‘Simpler Way’ and ‘Inclusive Democracy’,[1]
provides a good opportunity to summarise this debate and cover any further
points that have arisen in the meantime.

In the first part of his reply Ted makes
clear, once again, the paradigmatic differences between the two theses
(despite the fact that he himself does not see any significant
contradictions), which leads to his discussion of the significant strategic
differences in the second part. Starting from the premise that “there is no
possibility of technical fix strategies cutting resource use sufficiently to
solve the problems while anything like a consumer-capitalist society
continues”, he concludes that “this means we have to work for transition to
some kind of "Simpler Way", in which “we live very frugally and
self-sufficiently, in economies that are mostly small and have highly
localised, self-sufficient and cooperative ways under social control (i.e.,
not determined by market forces or profit), and without any economic growth.
None of these structural changes is possible without huge and radical value
change.”

However, to begin with, the premise
itself is false because it refers only to part of the story. Although it is
true that technical fix strategies might not be, by themselves, adequate in
dealing with the present huge problems, the elites do not have to rely
exclusively on them to avert an ecological catastrophe. In fact, the elites
have already begun implementing policies which pass the buck of sorting out
the ecological crisis to the population at large. In Britain, for instance,
the private car is rapidly becoming a luxury consumption item
―as it used to
be before the war― through the introduction of pioneering policies by the
‘red’ Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, which make its use prohibitive
―but
only for those who cannot afford to pay the heavy charge
involved!― in a
vast area of central London. The measure has proved so successful that the
‘new’ Labour government is now planning a nationwide congestion-charging
scheme for billing motorists for every journey.[2]
The official reason is supposed to be the fight against traffic congestion,
but the real reason is to reduce the car consumerism of the masses. This, in
combination with technological fixes on new ‘clean’ cars etc, is expected to
reduce greenhouse emissions. Similar measures are being discussed to reduce
the present massive amount of air traffic, by making the cost of flying
prohibitive to the masses—as it used to be in the past--etc.

The implications of the ecological
crisis were always, of course, class-discriminating in the sense that it was
always the poor and the lower social strata in general who were particularly
affected by the various ‘natural disasters’ caused by the greenhouse effect
and the consequent climate changes. But it is now clear that the same lower
classes will have to pay for the costs of the growth economy in general and
the ecological crisis in particular, while the luxurious consumption standards
of the rich will remain unaffected! Furthermore, even if the combination of
economic measures against the masses and technological fixes proves inadequate
in stopping the ecological crisis, the elites could always resort to various
forms of totalitarian measures against their own populations
―the legislative
background has already been set up with the various anti-terror laws―
in order
to implement emergency ecological measures. This is a far more likely scenario
than the ‘eco-rosy’ scenario presented by Ted, according to which people would
realise with a jolt that the old system can no longer provide for them,
forcing them to turn to local economic development, as governments would no
longer be able or willing to run things for them, and leading, therefore, to
the emergence of local systems.

The reason that Ted
adopts this unlikely scenario is because, for him, our supreme problem is
scarcity, not democracy and power, whereas for the Inclusive Democracy project
exactly the opposite is the case, i.e. it is democracy and power that
constitute our supreme problem. From the ID viewpoint, the sustainability and
scarcity problems could always be ‘sorted out’ somehow by the elites if they
reach a complete cul-de-sac, through the introduction of any kind of
authoritarian or even fascist measures and restrictions they deem necessary at
the moment of crisis. So, the real issue is not the problem of scarcity or
sustainability but, rather, at whose expense these problems are
going to be sorted out: are they going to be solved at the expense of the
elites and the privileged social classes, or at the expense of the working
classes and the weaker elements of society? The problem is, therefore, whether
or not people will establish institutions securing the equal distribution of
political, economic and social power (direct, economic and social democracy
respectively) which can then create the institutional preconditions (inclusive
democracy
―i.e. decentralisation in terms of confederated self-reliant
demoi) as well as the cultural preconditions
(Paideia)
for an ecological democracy.

On the basis of the above –false, to my
mind-- premise about priorities, Ted argues that the issue is not (as I,
supposedly, suggest) the need for a political movement, but ‘how on earth can
we get one going’, and his answer is that ‘our best chance will be through an
attempt to work here and now on the transformation of existing towns and
suburbs towards being "eco-villages" of a kind’ —a process which, he suggests,
could begin as of now, through small local groups beginning to take more
control over their local economies. This, he concludes, could be achieved with
no fight against capitalism: ’The Simpler Way is death for capitalism, but the
way we will defeat it is by ignoring it to death, by turning away from it and
building those many bits of the alternative that we could easily build right
now’.

However, what I have always stressed is
that, only if present antisystemic activities prefiguring the system become an
integral part of an antisystemic movement, could they be part of a solution to
the critical problem we face today, rather than part of the problem itself.
Furthermore, I have always emphasised that the process involves not the
creation of eco-villages (mainly outside the main society) but, instead, the
creation of local ‘inclusive democracies in action’ which would gradually move
resources out of the capitalist market economy and create new political,
economic and ecological institutions to replace the present ones[3].
Finally, I never assumed that the process could be completed without a fight
against capitalism, just by ‘ignoring’ it. The present eco-villages do not
ignore capitalism, as Mary Garden[4]
aptly stresses
―they very much depend on the capitalist state! The real
issue, therefore, is whether this fight would only be in terms of building new
political and economic institutions through local activity, taking part in
local elections etc, as well as through direct action and demonstrations, or
whether it would take the form of a violent revolution. As I have tried to
show elsewhere,[5]
a revolution usually involves a movement to take power “from above”
―something
that will never lead to a genuine democracy; therefore, what we really need is
a movement “from below”, which will begin building the new institutions here
and now. However, although there is no need for any violent confrontation with
the system for the transition to the new system to be achieved, we should be
prepared to defend ourselves in case of an attack by the elites, which seems
almost inevitable once they start seeing the new movement as a threat to
their monopolisation of power and, therefore, their privileges.

Coming to the last question Ted raises,
i.e. how we move from here to there, his answer is ‘by beginning here and now
tiny "community development cooperatives", made up of those very few people
with the necessary vision, who then take the first minute steps towards a
local, cooperative, non-market economy (community gardens, co-ops, working
bees, developing commons, workshops, skill banks, sharing, cooperative "firms"
etc).’ However, Ted does not talk about new forms of economic democracy, or
even about how to integrate existing radical attempts at creating new economic
and ecological institutions into a political movement that would provide the
catalyst for the development of an antisystemic consciousness, as ID does.
This is because he sees the core of the transitional process not in terms of a
change of institutions at the local level which, through an interplay with a
consequent change in values, would lead to a new culture —as the ID project
proposes through, for instance, winning a local authority at the local
elections. Instead, he sees the whole process as being effected through a
radical change in culture that is not necessarily connected with any parallel
institutional change. It is therefore just sufficient for him to rely on
eco-village settlements (like many of those belonging to the Global Ecovillage
Network (GEN)) with a sustainability motivation, for the transitional process
to be set in motion.

But then Ted leaves unanswered the
crucial question concerning the transitional process (which is actually the
central issue for any transitional strategy): how can an antisystemic
consciousness be created out of a basically a-political movement like the
eco-village movement today? As the GEN[6]
defines itself, it “is a global confederation of people and communities that
meet and share their ideas, exchange technologies, develop cultural and
educational exchanges, directories and newsletters, and are dedicated to
restoring the land and living "sustainable plus" lives by putting more back
into the environment than we take out”. This definition alone makes it clear
that the GEN is, at most, a single-issue environmentalist movement, which
takes no stand at all on the political, economic and social institutions which
determine the form of our society and it is, therefore, committed to achieving
its aims taking for granted the existing socio-economic system. Therefore,
although Ted has taken a consistently anti-market-economy view in his writings
(despite the fact that he is not abolitionist as he thinks that, in the near
future, we can retain a kind of market for a minor part of the economy),
nevertheless, the ecovillages of the GEN (some of which he supports as the
basis for a future society) do not, in any way, take a similar stand. In
fact, at least one out of the three administrative centres which, as Mary Garden reports,
coordinate the three regional networks of the GEN (The Farm at Tennessee,
Lebensgarten and Crystal Waters) adopts the New Age[7]
rubbish.

This is also confirmed by an examination
of the philosophy of the assortment of various organisations etc that have
been classified as members of the network, which mainly consists either of
strictly environmentalist groups (mostly engaged in teaching and/or practicing
environment-friendly technologies), or of
‘urban rejuvenation projects’ (mostly membered by
drug addicts, hippie squatters et.al.)
or,
most of all, of spiritualistic movements of various denominations.
The listed members may differ in many respects between them but they have one
thing in common: they are a-political, single issue organisations interested
only in one aspect of society, i.e. its relationship to Nature (in fact, not
even all of it, since the issue of animal treatment for instance is completely
ignored by the GEN and, as Mary Garden testifies, eco-villages
worldwide generally have a blanket ban on the keeping of dogs and cats as
pets!) The relationship of society to the economy and to polity is completely
ignored, presumably because the capitalist market economy and representative
‘democracy’ are taken for granted. No wonder that even the transnational-elite-controlled
UN and EU have cooperation/partnership links with
the GEN.

As regards the very important links
between the eco-village network
and various forms of
irrationalism, the official GEN website lists 11,000
sustainable villages in Sri Lanka belonging
to the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement,
which is known to be sponsoring public meditations in which tens and sometimes
hundreds of thousands of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians meditate
together on each other's welfare, using the Buddhist
Brahmavihara (Abode of God)
meditations that are acceptable within all four faiths[8].
Similarly, another member of the GEN, the Ladakh project on the Tibetan
plateau, is well known for its Tibetan Buddhist culture. Also,
another member listed is the Federation of Damanhur
in Italy, which holds a mixture
of New Age and
neopagan beliefs.[9]
Last, but not least, the eco-town of Auroville in South India is listed whose (presumably antisystemic!)
self-declared ‘sole purpose is to realize human unity
in diversity’. The idea for
this eco-town, we learn,
was originated by ‘The Mother’ (an "incarnation
of the Divine Mother”,
the female polarity of the Godhead, the Shakti or Adi-shakti from which the entire universe emerges) and Sri
Aurobindo (a Hindu mystic believed by the supporters of this eco-town to be an
avatar, an
incarnation of the
Absolute).
It is worth noting
―as
Hildur Jackson, one of
the founders of the Gaia
Trust and the GEN,
stated in a recent interview― that
Sri Aurobindo,
together with the ‘Mother’, are believed to have
provided the impulse for the creation of the entire eco-village network[10]!

Therefore, on the basis of the GEN’s
aims and the composition of its listed members, it is clear that, not only
would the eco-village network be unable to provide the basis for a movement
leading to the transition to an ecological democracy, but that the network
is, in fact, very much part of the problem of today’s society. It is obvious
that a single-issue philosophy based on the concept of sustainability combined
with all sorts of irrational elements has hardly anything to do with the most
elementary requirements of an antisystemic project: first, a radical critique
of the socio-economic institutions which have led to the present
multidimensional crisis
―part of which is the ecological crisis. Second,
concrete proposals as to how society could be integrated with polity, the
economy and Nature through the development of new institutions securing the
equal distribution of political, economic and social power. Third, a strategy
leading from here to there. Most of all, an antisystemic project requires a
rational philosophy founded on democracy as a structure and a process of
social self-institution. This implies the democratic adoption of those
traditions and that body of knowledge that have as their sources (and are
processed by) reason and open discussion, rather than religious or other
intuitions (Revelation, intuition, myth or a closed system of ideas and/or
‘scientific’ truths). The only admissible ‘truths’, therefore, in an
antisystemic movement, including values and ethical codes conditioning
individual behaviour, are those rationally derived and democratically decided
upon.

So, to the extent that the eco-village
movement is a single-issue movement dominated by irrational philosophies, it
is very much part of the problem of transition to a new society rather than
its solution, given that it disorients people with respect to the causes and
possible ways out of the systemic crisis. I
understand Ted Trainer’s
anxiety to start a movement
with existing settlements rather than to begin the difficult and long-term
project of creating new, truly
anti-systemic ecovillages which, potentially, may be active members of an
antisystemic movement for
an ecological democracy (perhaps together with some existing organisations like LETS). However, this is
the only way forward,
unless he wants to be associated, at worst,
with all the New Age
rubbish and, at best, with what
Mary Garden aptly describes as an
elitist exclusive club (controlled by a self-appointed central group),
capitalising on the growing interest in sustainability in society at large.